Original scientific paper
The Concept of Justice in the Philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Marita Brčić Kuljiš
orcid.org/0000-0001-8556-0696
; University of Spllit, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Split, Croatia
Abstract
Disappointed with the social order of his time, which is dominated by inequality, lack of freedom and consequently unfairness, Jean-Jacques Rousseau has reached for the idea of social contract. This idea leads the philosopher in history, and he himself tries to imagine how people of the state of nature crossed into civil condition. Considering that current civil state brought out the worst in people, J.-J. Rousseau takes all his hope in people in the natural state. In the natural state is effective self-love and mercy, so there is no need for the concept of justice. In civil state, which is the result of advanced rationality and the establishment of private property, unfairness takes effect. The self-love turns into the egotism and the natural man in a rational animal called ‘a citizen’ that puts itself and their interests in first place. As a philosopher, Rousseau wants to offer a vision of an ideal society with a new version of the social contract that will ensure the establishment of equitable relations. Although people in their natural state have no need to establish equitable relations, Rousseau, however, believes that they carry some idea of justice within themselves, and by deepening of that idea they come up with the idea of social contract. Properly understood, the idea of justice seems like a link between Aristotle’s conception of political justice and justice as fairness of John Rawls.
Keywords
man; citizen; social contract; equality; political justice; Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Hrčak ID:
132962
URI
Publication date:
26.11.2014.
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